The Destined Queen

by Deborah Hale

  Perhaps they would never know, but for now Rath was more than willing to take the credit. A new energy seemed to sweep over the deck of the Phantom, as if the wind had suddenly begun to blow in a more favorable direction.

  “Look sharp, men!” shouted Gull as the galleys on either side of them edged closer together. “Don’t get cocky!”

  From high in the rigging, a scream pierced the air and a crewmen plunged to the deck below, knocking down one of his mates who had been standing near the mast.

  “Hanish archers!” someone called. “Firing from the galley!”

  Rath pulled Maura down as an arrow whistled over their heads, ripping through one of the Phantom’s sails.

  She shook off his protective grasp and began crawling across the deck toward the tangle of twitching limbs. “I must see if I can help those poor men!”

  The four bowmen on the Phantom returned fire and Rath had the grim satisfaction of seeing a Hanish archer plunge from his ship into the sea.

  Maura quickly checked the injured men lying on the deck. “They’re both still alive.” She unwadded more linen from her sash to staunch the bleeding of the man who’d been hit by the arrow. “It is in his shoulder and may have hit bone. I won’t be able to push the barb through, the way Langbard did for you…even if I knew how.”

  Both men had been knocked senseless. Now the fellow who had been struck by the falling body began to waken, moaning.

  “We must get them belowdecks,” said Rath, “where you can tend them properly.”

  And where she would be in a little less danger…for now.

  The rest of the crew were occupied, returning bow fire and navigating the Phantom through the perilously narrow strip of water between ore galleys.

  Rath reached for the arrow shaft sticking out of the wounded man’s shoulder. Grasping it near the base where it stuck out of the flesh, he snapped off the rest of the shaft, thankful the injured man could not feel what he was doing.

  “So it will not catch on anything when we move him,” Rath explained to Maura as he hoisted the injured man under his arms. “Can you get his feet?”

  The words had barely left his lips before Maura lifted the fellow’s ankles. Fortunately, he was not too heavy and the hatch that led down to the ship’s hold was not far off.

  “Set him…right here,” Maura gasped when they had wrestled the unconscious man down the ladder, “so I will have…some light coming through the hatch…to see what I’m doing.”

  Rath did as she bid him, laying the injured man out to one side of the ladder. “You stay here and see to his wound. I’ll go back for the other fellow.”

  “Are you sure you can manage on your own?” Maura rummaged in the pockets of her sash for healing herbs.

  “If I can’t, I will fetch you to help me,” Rath lied. He would find some way to get the man down here without bestirring Maura from the relative safety of the hold.

  As he squeezed past her to reach the ladder, his hands closed over her shoulders in a swift caress.

  She reached up to cover his hands with hers, making him linger for a moment, which he was glad to do. “The other man may have broken bones. Check if any of his limbs are twisted at odd angles. If one is, tie it to a piece of wood or anything you can find to keep the break from shifting worse.”

  “Aye, aira.” He dropped a fleeting kiss on her neck before heading off. “I may not have your gentle touch, but I will do my best for him.”

  “Water,” he heard her mutter as he climbed back up to the deck. “A whole sea out there, but not a drop where I need it.”

  “There’s a barrel over in that corner.” Rath pointed. “If it is empty, I will find you water as soon as I get back.”

  He had just crawled out of the hold when he met two crewmen carrying their injured comrade toward the hatch. The fellow was conscious now, his features twisted in pain.

  Rath caught the injured man’s eye. “The lady will soon set you to rights, friend. She has healed me of a good many wounds and always left me better than I was before.”

  He made a hasty circuit of the deck, looking for more wounded he could send down to Maura, but he found none.

  When he asked Gull, the captain shook his head and answered in a tone of grim pride, “The Han are better swordsmen than archers. They got one lucky shot. We hit four times that many. You know, inlander, I am beginning to think we might get out of this alive, after all.”

  Gull pulled hard on the rudder and the Phantom veered to squeeze between another pair of ore galleys.

  How many did that make? Rath had lost count. He wondered that there was any ore left in the Blood Moon Mountains, with this much hacked out and shipped away every year since the Han had conquered Umbria. How many men had sweat, bled and retched away their lives to fill this fleet with its vile cargo year after year?

  Impotent fury seethed within him. His fist ached for a weapon powerful enough to channel and purge it, but even the Han did not possess one that destructive.

  A harsh chuckle from Gull roused Rath from his fruitless rage. “Do my eyes lie, or is that open sea beyond those cursed tubs?”

  Rath peered ahead, his rage ebbing for a moment. “I am only an inlander, so you might not want to take my word for it. But that looks a good deal like open sea to me.”

  Something about the tone of Gull’s laughter told Rath it was partly directed at himself. “I will take your word for it. And I reckon I had better find something else to call you…friend.”

  “I like the sound of that.”

  Gull thought for a moment, then he grinned. “So do I. And to think this was all the idea of a pretty wench. If you ever tire of her…?”

  “The lady will tire of me long before I tire of her.” Though Rath meant the words only in jest, somehow they turned back to sting him hard and deep.

  He did not have time to fret about it, though, for just then the Phantom broke through the final row of ore galleys.

  “Slag!” muttered Gull. “Nothing’s ever that easy, is it?”

  Rath glanced up to see one last Hanish cutter sailing toward them.

  “We didn’t come through all that to let them get us now!” Gull snagged Rath’s arm and hauled him toward the tiller. “Hold on to this and keep it pulled as far that way as you can until I tell you different. Aye?”

  “Aye!” Rath struggled to hold the tiller that had seemed to take no effort at all from Gull.

  Meanwhile, the captain strode the length of his ship, calling out orders for setting the sails. From what little Rath had learned about wind and sails, he reckoned Gull was putting the Phantom on a course that would force the Hanish ship to veer out of the wind. But would it lose speed quickly enough to keep it from ramming the smaller vessel?

  Rath guessed it would be a near thing one way or the other. With each passing moment, as he strained to hold the rudder firm, his fear grew that they would not make it. He glanced toward the hatch, willing Maura to climb up looking for something she might need to tend the injured men.

  With danger so near at hand, he wanted her close so he could be certain she was all right. And so he could do whatever he must to protect her, if it came to that.

  He did not dare leave the post Gull had assigned him, or he would have gone to her at once. Instead, he made frantic plans how he would reach her and what he would do if the Han boarded Gull’s ship, or if their sharp prow caught it broadside.

  As the latter seemed more and more likely, Rath braced for the crash. Then suddenly, the Hanish cutter veered back to its original course and the Phantom slid past.

  Rath sagged under the warm weight of his relief—so much that he almost lost his grip on the tiller. What had made the Han flinch at that last instant? Surely they did not fear a collision with Gull’s little Phantom.

  Could this be the working of his and Maura’s destiny?

  Gull soon appeared to give Rath a few answers. He fairly danced over the deck in his excitement. “Look, man, look! Slag the tiller—let it go
and look!”

  He pointed past the Hanish cutter to the bulk of the Ore Fleet in the distance. Though the sun had dipped near the western horizon, it was still possible to make out what was happening to the Hanish ships. Galleys and cutters alike, they floundered as if each were caught in its own private squall. The wind blew no harder than it had all day, yet some invisible tempest churned up giant breakers that tossed the huge, heavy-laden vessels about like wood chips.

  Only the ship that had been chasing the Phantom seemed not to be ensnared…yet. Seeing the rest of the fleet in trouble must have made its crew veer away so suddenly. Now they furled sails and slowed.

  “I have heard of the warding waters.” Gull shook his head in wonder. “But never thought to see them at work with my own eyes.” He pointed toward the cutter. “The Han cannot decide whether to go to the aid of the others, or hang back so they will not be caught in whatever this is.”

  Whatever this is. Those words set a chill gnawing deep in Rath’s bones—his old wariness of magic. During his travels with Maura that fear had eased as he’d come to understand how she channeled the special power of living things for modest feats of healing and defense. But he’d never seen Maura unleash anything like this. Rath hoped he never would.

  Gull appeared to have no such reservations. “The whole Ore Fleet! And to think my little Phantom lured them into it. Why this will be talked and sung of on the Dusk Coast for a hundred years!”

  Rath did not point out that last night’s storm had likely played a part, as well. No harm in letting Gull savor his triumph. If the Han had not been so distracted by the Umbrian vessel sailing in their midst, they might have noticed the first of their own ships running into trouble while they still had time to avoid it themselves. The little madfern missiles might have played a part, too.

  One by one the sea began to swallow the floundering Hanish vessels. What would the loss of the Ore Fleet mean for the Han and for Umbria? Rath wondered. A growing shortage of weapons for the garrisons, perhaps? A whisper of crippling uncertainty among the Han that rust was beginning to erode the iron grip in which they had long held his country?

  “What will we do now?” he asked Gull.

  The captain chuckled and took the tiller from Rath. “Quit gloating, I reckon, and head for harbor before whatever’s left of the Ore Fleet tries to come after us.”

  He called out to his crew, “Trim those sails one last time, lads, then we’ll sleep and feast tonight in Margyle!”

  The crew seemed to fancy that idea, for they scrambled to obey Gull’s orders. Soon the Phantom sailed west in a wide arc that kept plenty of distance between it and the ravenous stretch of water that had engulfed the Ore Fleet.

  Rath headed off to find Maura. She might need his help tending those wounded men. He was also anxious to tell her what he had just witnessed and what he thought it might mean.

  He found her holding a mug to the lips of the man who’d been struck down by his fallen comrade. She had strapped his right arm close to his body with long strips of linen and bound his left leg to what looked like the handle of a mop.

  She glanced up when she heard Rath on the ladder, smiling when she saw it was him. “I hope all that cheering means we are out of danger at last.”

  Rath nodded as he sank down beside her. “Gull says we’ll sleep and feast on Margyle tonight.”

  He did not tell her about their close brush with the Hanish cutter. He would save that for later, when they had firm, dry ground beneath their feet and deadly warding waters between them and any Han who might wish them harm.

  “You should have seen what happened to the Ore Fleet.” He began to describe it. “For once, they met a force even more merciless than themselves, rot them!”

  The man with the arrow in his shoulder stirred and moaned, though his eyes did not open.

  Maura cast an anxious glance his way. “I hope the poor fellow will not waken until we’ve reached Margyle. They must have more skilled healers than I who can remove that barbed arrowhead from his flesh.”

  “Arrowhead?” The thought paralysed Rath for an instant.

  The unconscious crewman had a chunk of metal in his flesh. Metal, like the kind that had made the warding waters devour the Hanish Ore Fleet.

  “Gull!” He leaped to his feet and surged up the ladder toward the deck. “Turn back! Arrows! Metal! The warding waters!”

  Rath hurled himself up through the open hatch and staggered toward the tiller. The moment he saw Gull’s face, he could tell the captain had understood his garbled warning.

  But when a huge wave rose out of nowhere to slam across the Phantom’s bow, he also knew his warning had come too late.

  5

  R ath’s cry of alarm and his hurried footfall on the ladder made fear tighten around Maura’s throat. For a moment, though, she did not understand what had driven him toward the deck shouting at the top of his voice.

  Then she heard the crash of a great wave and the Phantom reeled like a fighter struck hard on the head. The sudden pitch of the ship flung her sideways on top of the unconscious man. She just managed to keep from hitting the poor fellow’s shoulder and driving the arrowhead deeper into his flesh.

  The arrowhead! Rath’s words echoed in her mind and finally made sense. Could one tiny shard of metal truly be to blame for the tempest now tearing at the Phantom?

  The injured man moved and groaned when Maura landed on top of him. “What happened? Where am I?”

  She pulled herself off him, but kept low, with her arms splayed out to brace her against the next roll of the ship. “You’re in the hold. A Hanish archer from one of the ore galleys shot you down from the rigging.”

  The other injured man spoke up, his voice a bit slurred from the pain-easing brew Maura had given him. “You might be dead, now, if I hadn’t broken your fall. Say, lady, why is the ship rocking? Are the Han ramming us?”

  The Phantom gave another great heave…and so did Maura’s belly. She rummaged in her sash for the rest of the sea grass, popped a piece in her mouth and began chewing furiously. She’d be no good to anyone huddled in a corner retching her guts out.

  “It isn’t the Han.” Maura mumbled the words around a mouthful of sea grass.

  “No.” Rath’s voice rang out from above. “It’s that arrow.”

  He climbed back down the ladder, stopping halfway and clinging to it when another huge wave lashed the ship, sending a shower of spray through the hatch. “There are more stuck into the masts and the deck. Gull has his crew scouring the ship for them now.”

  He jumped down the last few rungs, landing on his hands and knees near Maura. “Can you get this one out?”

  “I told you, I don’t—”

  Before she could finish, Rath leaned close and whispered, “If we cannot get it off the ship any other way, Gull will have this poor fellow thrown overboard!”

  She had to try, then. She could not let a man drown because he’d had the bad fortune to be shot by a Hanish arrow. Whatever she might do to prevent it, she would have to work quickly. The ship could not take much more of this violent buffeting and still remain afloat.

  If only she had not woken the poor fellow by falling on him! Anything she did to dislodge that arrowhead was sure to cause him great pain. Maura shrank from that.

  “What can I do?” she asked Rath in an urgent whisper. “I have nothing sharp I can…cut it out with. Remember what Langbard said about Hanish arrows, how the barbs catch in the flesh if you try to pull them out.”

  “Push it through, then, like Langbard did for me!”

  “I don’t know how!”

  She heard voices overhead. Gull must be sending someone to fetch the wounded man.

  “You may know more than you think.” Rath clutched her hand. “Did Langbard share any of that skill with you in the passing ritual?”

  As she chided herself for not thinking of it, Maura marveled that Rath had. The passing ritual was the first stage of a journey between this life and the afterworld.
When the spirit of a living person accompanied a dying one, a sharing of memories took place, so that part of the dying person would live on.

  Maura’s passing ritual with her wizard guardian had been too brief, rushed by the threat of lurking danger. But since then, she’d discovered unexpected memories of Langbard’s among her own, stirred by a chance word or experience. She had never yet tried calling upon a memory she could not be certain was even there.

  She heard someone scrambling down the ladder.

  “Hold them back,” she begged Rath. “Do not let them take him until—”

  “Do it!” cried Rath. “I know you can.”

  If only she could have half the confidence in herself that Rath had in her. Maura crawled over to the wounded man who was moaning in pain. She wished she had time to brew him a draft to ease it, but that would have to wait. Another shower of cold, briny spray crashed into the hold. The boards of the hull groaned under the beating they were taking.

  “Lie still,” she bid the wounded man. “Take a deep breath and hold it.”

  She groped for the stub of the arrow shaft sticking out of his shoulder, hoping that action would unearth the memory of what she must do next. She pictured the upstairs chamber of Langbard’s cottage with Rath lying on the bed, a Hanish arrow imbedded in his arm. She pictured Langbard perched on the side of the bed, preparing to expel the arrow.

  Then, suddenly, she was Langbard, seeing the whole scene through his eyes. Knowing what he…what she must do.

  Spikeroot—that was what she needed! But did she have any left in her sash? Not knowing its use, she had once thought of emptying that pocket to store something more needful.

  The dark, wet, pitching hold of the ship seemed to recede around her. Maura heard Rath’s voice as if from a long distance, first pleading, then challenging. “I will not let you disturb the lady at her work. Gull can have my head for it, if he wants.”

  “The fish will have all our heads and the rest of our flesh, too,” the crewman shouted, “if we do not throw that cursed arrow into the sea one way or the other!”

  “They want to throw me overboard!” The wounded man thrashed about, then howled in pain as he jerked the stub of the arrow shaft in Maura’s grip. “Don’t let them take me!”